REVOLUTIONARY WORLD: GLOBAL UPHEAVAL IN THE MODERN AGE
Description
Throughout the modern age, revolutions have spread across state borders, engulfing entire regions, continents, and, at times, the globe. Revolutionary World examines the spread of upheavals during the major revolutionary moments in modern history: the Atlantic Revolutions, Europe’s 1848 revolts, the commune movement of the 1870s, the 1905-15 upheavals in Asia, the communist revolutions around 1917, the ‘Wilsonian’ uprisings of 1919, the ‘Third World’ revolutions, the global Islamic revolt of 1978-79, the events of 1989, and the rise and fall of the ‘Arab Spring’. The chapters explore the nature of these revolutionary waves, tracing the exchange of radical ideas and the movements of revolutionaries around the world. Bringing together a group of distinguished historians, Revolutionary World shows that the major revolutions of the modern age, which have so often been studied as isolated national or imperial events, were almost never contained within state borders and were usually part of broader revolutionary moments.
Prize
∙ Winner, 2022 Choice Outstanding Academic Titles
Reviews
‘A remarkable attempt to globalise the history of revolution. By illuminating international connections, the authors also rescue many movements from the retrospective nationalisation of history.’
— Timothy Garton Ash, University of Oxford
‘The superlative list of contributors will raise readers’ expectations and they will not be disappointed: this volume raises new questions about the global interconnections of revolutionary movements and provides surprising answers that could only be offered by those with deep knowledge and a broad comparative vision. Each chapter can be read profitably on its own but the juxtaposition of these exceptional studies is truly dazzling.’
— Lynn Hunt, UCLA
‘Successive waves of revolutions formed the modern world, but world history has strikingly failed to treat those revolutions comprehensively–until now. This rich collection illuminatingly surveys the world of revolutions from the late eighteenth century to the Arab Spring. It should set the global history of revolutions on a new path by raising as many fertile questions as it answers: a major achievement.’
— David Armitage, Harvard University
‘This is a uniformly valuable set of expert essays and more than the sum of its parts. Motadel and his authors both do justice to the local sources of particular revolutions, and rightly insist on the many connections and convergences between them in terms of timing, formative ideas and personnel.’
— Linda Colley, Princeton University
‘The manifold revolutions since the late 18th century always disdained national and geographical boundaries as they made the modern world. The superbly informative and insightful essays in this volume, which synthesize much contemporary scholarship, are a major step forward to a genuinely global history.’
— Pankaj Mishra, author of Age of Anger
‘Revolutionary World charts the impact that revolutions have made on world-historical development over the past two centuries…Carefully curated by David Motadel, who edits the volume and contributes an exceptionally thorough introductory chapter, the individual chapters are uniformly well written and well crafted. For an edited volume, the book is unusually cohesive, so much so that it reads almost as if it had a single voice…Perhaps the signal achievement of Revolutionary World is to embed the study of particular revolutions within global dynamics: shared structural contexts (such as imperialism), the connections that revolutionaries draw between their struggles and others (from common ideologies to shared tactics), the transmission systems that enable these connections (forms of media, activist networks), and more…All in all, therefore, this volume demonstrates the kind of open-minded analysis that the field of revolutionary studies requires. It is a thought-provoking, agenda-setting book. I hope it is widely read, not just by historians, but also by IR scholars…We could not wish for a richer illustration of the ways in which the past of revolutions informs their present, nor of the many ways in which revolutions are a vital area of study in contemporary world politics.’
— George Lawson, H-NET – Read Review
‘The collection critiques the almost commonsensical methodological nationalism that claims that revolution is primarily a national project – as if the Russian Revolution was just ‘Russian’. Instead, the book invites us to think that revolutions are metaphorically and literally transnational; they draw on and spread across borders, with no fixed centre or periphery. This is what gives them such powerful potential… Those teaching courses on revolutions, revolutionary politics and global history would do well to reference this book.’
— Thomas Furse, LSE REVIEW OF BOOKS – Read Review
‘Motadel’s anthology can further ‘contribute to our understanding of territoriality in the history of revolutionary upheavals’ and also show how revolutions spread in waves in different geographical and temporal contexts.’
— Frank Jacob, ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR GESCHICHTSWISSENSCHAFT (Translation) – Read Review
‘Motadel’s introduction offers a smooth narrative connecting revolutionary events addressed in the volume in a meaningful and organic way. The references cited in the footnotes are especially helpful for pedagogical purposes. This book is an excellent choice for any upper-level thematic world/global history course on revolution. It can also help junior scholars gain a global perspective on modern revolutionary movements … Highly recommended.’
— X. Fan, CHOICE MAGAZINE – Read Review